Early life

Born Denise Kathleen Outen in Basildon, Essex, she is the youngest of Ted and Kathleen Outen's three children and was brought up a Catholic. She has a brother Terry and sister Jackie.

At the age of seven, she began modelling for knitting patterns, and showed an early flair for performing. This resulted in her attending the Sylvia Young Theatre School. In 1986, at the age of 12, she played Éponine in Les Misérables alongside fellow Sylvia Young student Melanie Blatt (the role paid her school fees), the Anthony Newley directed production of Stop the World - I Want to Get Off, and A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Early career

As a teenager she had brief roles on a number of television dramas including Kappatoo and The Bill. She also sang with Cathy Warwick in "girl group" Those2Girls, by which time she had become Denise van Outen. She also did backing vocals with Melanie Blatt for the band Dreadzone.

Van Outen was voted Rear of the Year in 1999, and was top of a poll to find the most desired "bikini body" in a 2007 poll of readers of Grazia magazine.

Acting career

Among her earliest roles was that of Dorothy in a little seen version of The Wizard of Oz set in the present day made for British Channel Five in 1995. During her first stint on the Big Breakfast show, she appeared as Jill in ITV1's version of the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk alongside Julie Walters and Neil Morrissey. Wanting to further develop her acting career, she left The Big Breakfast at the end of 1998. In 1999, she appeared on several episodes of The Bill and The Young Person's Guide To Becoming A Rock Star, the BBC's Murder in Mind short series of crime dramas, and on 2 series of Babes in the Wood with Karl Howman and Samantha Janus.

Van Outen has also appeared in film, initially as Maureen in the crime comedy Love, Honour and Obey. In the anthology film Tube Tales, set on the London Underground, she played the lead character of Alex in the "Horny" segment, directed by Stephen Hopkins. Van Outen has played a small role in the romantic comedy Are You Ready For Love?

She first played Roxie Hart on the stage in the hit musical Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End in April 2001. Her run proved a hit with theatre-goers, selling out for the entire 20 weeks. Unknown in the United States, she reprised her role on Broadway in the spring of 2002, before returning to the show's London version in late April 2002. Late the same year, Van Outen appeared as one of many special guest stars in a performance of The Play What I Wrote once again in London's West End.

In 2003, she returned to the London stage at the Gielgud Theatre in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one-woman show Tell Me on a Sunday, which he reworked for her. She was a huge success and the show ran for nearly a year. She then joined the cast of the established ITV sentimental drama Where the Heart Is as one of the lead characters, playing single mother Kim Blakeney, continuing for two series.

Van Outen played Maureen in the 2007 London revival of Rent Remixed directed by William Baker until 22 December. She was forced to cancel some performances owing to a throat infection.

In July 2009, van Outen played Mary in Hotel Babylon for the BBC. Her character was at the hotel for a science convention.

In August 2009, van Outen made her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in Blondes, a show by Jackie Clune.

Van Outen took over the role of Paulette Bonafonté from Jill Halfpenny in the West End production of Legally Blonde on 25 October 2010. She continued in the role for 6 months.

In 2012, Van Outen was cast in the film of the Ray Cooney farce Run for Your Wife alongside Danny Dyer, Sarah Harding and Neil Morrissey.

In 2013 she co-wrote the one-woman musical play Some Girl I Used To Know with Terry Ronald, which she will tour in from January 2014.

In February 2015, it was announced that Van Outen would be joining the cast of EastEnders. Van Outen plays intelligent businesswoman Karin Smart who gets involved with Max Branning (Jake Wood), and has business history with Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden).

In August 2015 Van Outen performs the title role in a concert performance of the musical Sweet Charity at Cadogan Hall, with actor/singer Michael Xavier, ex-Girls Aloud band member Kimberley Walsh and West End star Kerry Ellis.

Radio

On 4 February 2008 van Outen reunited with Vaughan as co-host of Capital Breakfast on Capital Radio.

On 29 July 2008 she quit the show, halfway through her contract, because of TV commitments and the early mornings However, in April 2011 van Outen said that she left the show because relations between her and Vaughan had soured. She claims Vaughan has not spoken to her since.

In spring 2013, van Outen started presenting her own Saturday afternoon radio show on London's Magic 105.4, airing between 1.00pm and 3.00pm.

Fashion

Van Outen has designed two collections thus far for the website, Very, part of the Shop Direct Group. The first collection was a maternity range launched in March 2010 and the second an autumn/winter collection.

Television

Television
Year	Title	Role
1995-96	Massive!	Presenter
1997-98, 2000-01	The Big Breakfast	Presenter
1998-99	Babes in the Wood	Leigh Jackson
1999	Something for the Weekend	Presenter
2001	Prickly Heat	Presenter
2004	Passport to Paradise	Presenter
2005	This Morning	Guest presenter
2006	The National Lottery: Christmas Special	Presenter
2007	Any Dream Will Do!	Regular judge
	Grease: You're the One that I Want!	Presenter
	The Friday Night Project	Guest presenter
2008	Backstage at the Brits	Presenter
	Who Dares, Sings!	Co-presenter
	Hairspray: The School Musical	Presenter
2010	The 5 O'Clock Show	Guest presenter
2010, 2012	Lorraine	Guest presenter
2010-	The Only Way Is Essex	Narrator
2011	Born to Shine	Regular judge
2012	Strictly Come Dancing	Runner Up
2013	Sunday Brunch	Guest presenter
2015	EastEnders	Karin Smart

Guest appearances

• The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2005 - Contestant
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? - Celebrity contestant
• Hotel Babylon (2009) - Guest appearance
• Celebrity Juice (18 March 2009, 29 September 2011) - Panellist
• James Corden's World Cup Live (2 July 2010) - Guest
• Magic Numbers (28 August 2010) - Guest
• This Morning (2 March 2011, 10 May 2012) - Guest
• The Alan Titchmarsh Show (8 March 2011, 13 March 2013) - Guest
• Daybreak (22 July 2011, 23 July 2012, 1 November 2012) - Guest
• The Marriage Ref (30 July 2011) - Panellist
• Loose Women (6 September 2011, 1 March 2012, 20 September 2012, 14 January 2013) - Guest
• The British Soap Awards (2 May 2012) - Award presenter
• Mad Mad World (7 July 2012) - Panellist
• Lorraine (18 December 2012) - Guest
• Paddy's 2012 Show and Telly (22 December 2012) - Contestant, alongside Nicky Byrne
• Andrew Lloyd Webber: 40 Musical Years (31 March 2013) - Guest and singer
• Would I Lie to You? (3 May 2013) - Panellist
• Your Face Sounds Familiar (20 July 2013) - Guest judge
• Through the Keyhole (7 September 2013) - Panellist
• Gadget Man (16 September 2013) - Guest
• The Chase: Celebrity Special (12 October 2013) - Celebrity contestant
• Show Me the Telly (27 November, 3, 9, 13 December 2013) - Panellist
• Catchphrase: Celebrity Special (1 June 2014) - Celebrity contestant
• Draw It! (30 June - 4 July 2014) - Celebrity team captain
• Reality Bites (5 March 2015) - Guest panellist

Strictly Come Dancing

In September 2012, van Outen was announced as one of the celebrities competing on the tenth series of Strictly Come Dancing. She partnered with professional dancer James Jordan. The couple secured top of the leaderboard seven times. However, controversy arose when viewers criticised her participation in the competition because of the advantage of having had previous stage experience.

On 20 December 2012, van Outen and Jordan finished as the runners-up alongside Kimberley Walsh & Pasha Kovalev, behind Louis Smith and Flavia Cacace.

Strictly Come Dancing performances

Week #	Dance/Song	Judges' scores				Result
		Revel Horwood	Bussell	Goodman	Tonioli
1	Waltz / "With You I'm Born Again"	6	6	6	7	Safe
2	Jive / "Tutti Frutti"	8	8	8	8	Safe
3	Foxtrot / "You've Got a Friend in Me"	8	8	8	8	Safe
4	Cha-Cha-Cha / "Super Freak"	7	7	7	7	Safe
5	Viennese Waltz / "At Last"	9	8	9	9	Safe
6	Paso Doble / "Seven Nation Army"	9	9	9	9	Safe
7	Charleston / "Walk Like an Egyptian"	9	10	10	10	Safe
8	American Smooth / "Imagine"	9	9	9	10	Safe
9	Salsa / "Rhythm of the Night"	8	8	8	8	Safe
10	Jive & Quickstep Fusion / "Reet Petite"	8	9	9	9	Bottom two
11	Tango / "Roxanne" Rumba / "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"	9 9	10 9	10 10	10 10	Bottom two
12	Jive / "Tutti Frutti" Showdance / "What a Feeling" Charleston / "Walk Like an Egyptian"	9 10 10	10 10 10	10 10 10	10 10 10	Runner-up

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	Jack and the Beanstalk	Jill	Televised pantomime
1999	Tube Tales	Alex	in segment "Horny"
2000	Love, Honour and Obey	Maureen
2007	Are You Ready for Love?	Rita
2012	Run for Your Wife	Michelle Smith

Other work

On 29 June 2010, whilst co-hosting The 5 O'Clock Show on Channel 4, Denise broke the Guinness World Record for eating 250g of jelly in 60 seconds with a blindfold on.

Discography

All singles, unless otherwise stated:

• 1994: "Wanna Make You Go... Uuh!" (with Those 2 Girls)
• 1995: "All I Want" (with Those 2 Girls)
• 1998: "Especially for You" - shown as Denise & Johnny (a cover of the Kylie Minogue & Jason Donovan song of the same name)
• 1999: "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" - from the ABBAMania compilation album
• 2002: "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" (With Andy Williams)
• 2003: "Tell Me on a Sunday" (Original cast recording)
• 2007: "Baby It's Cold Outside" - duet with Russell Watson on his 2007 album Outside In

Personal life

From 1998 to 2001, she dated Jamiroquai lead singer Jay Kay. Engaged, they split up in 2001. His album A Funk Odyssey is mostly about their break-up, with the song "Little L" expressing his fight against cocaine addiction during that period. From 2003, she dated "Brown's" club owner Richard Traviss, but split up with him in May 2005. In 2007, she dated fellow ex-Sylvia Young Theatre School student James Lance for a few weeks.

In November 2007, she began dating Any Dream Will Do winner, Lee Mead. The couple announced their engagement on 29 January 2009, and married in the Seychelles in April 2009. Their daughter was born on 1 May 2010, with one official photo released to publications in exchange for donations to The Louis Dundas Centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital. In July 2013 the couple released a joint statement stating that they had split but remained good friends.

Charity

Van Outen actively supports Breast Cancer Care and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

In 2009 she climbed Mt Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief, and in 2013 took part in a trek across the Great Wall of China for the Royal Marsden Hospital.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]